Swedish-Iranian William Atashkadeh to join Team Melli

Persianfootball.com – DUBAI/KUWAIT CITY, The Iranian football national team head coach Carlos Queiroz once again surprised the Iranian media as well as the majority of Iran’s football supporters by inviting Sweden-born William Atashkadeh (20) to join Team Melli.

The 20-year old striker who is currently under contract to the recently relegated Swedish club Örebro SK, is only one of an increasing amount of European based players within Team Melli under the era of the Portuguese Queiroz.

His Swedish compatriot, Omid Nazari (21) previously joined Team Melli and celebrated a satisfactory and promising debut for the Iranians as well as FC Fulham’s Ashkan Dejagah (26), Standard Liege’s Reza Ghoochannejhad (25) and newly introduced Eintracht Braunschweig goalkeeper Daniel Davari (25) who most probably will celebrate his debut on Friday.

In an interview with the website of the Iranian Football Federation (IFF), the former IFK Göteborg and former Swedish U19 striker Atashkadeh expressed his happiness over the invitation to the Iranian national team. He also stated that he always wished to join and represent Iran on the field.

The 20-year old said that this call-up will also boost his club career.

Although Atashkadeh already arrived at the training camp of Team Melli in Dubai, it is yet unknown if the striker will make the final squad for the upcoming Asian Cup 2015 qualifier against Kuwait on next Friday as he was slightely injured last week and therefore was sidelined during his club’s training sessions.

William Philip Sirous Atashkadeh, born 1992 in Gothenburg, participated in nine matches of the Swedish U19 national team. He started his senior career at IFK Göteborg in 2009 (5 first league appearances, 1 goal) and joined Örebro SK in 2011 (28 first league appearances, 7 goals).